Physics-based deep learning reveals rising heating demand heightens air pollution in Norwegian cities
It addresses air quality management for policymakers in Norway by providing data-driven insights, though it is incremental as it applies existing PBDL methods to a specific regional context.
This study tackled the problem of predicting air pollution in Norwegian cities by analyzing interactions between climate factors and air quality, finding that rising heating demand correlates with increased pollution levels and that Physics-based Deep Learning (PBDL) outperformed LSTM in prediction accuracy.
Policymakers frequently analyze air quality and climate change in isolation, disregarding their interactions. This study explores the influence of specific climate factors on air quality by contrasting a regression model with K-Means Clustering, Hierarchical Clustering, and Random Forest techniques. We employ Physics-based Deep Learning (PBDL) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) to examine the air pollution predictions. Our analysis utilizes ten years (2009-2018) of daily traffic, weather, and air pollution data from three major cities in Norway. Findings from feature selection reveal a correlation between rising heating degree days and heightened air pollution levels, suggesting increased heating activities in Norway are a contributing factor to worsening air quality. PBDL demonstrates superior accuracy in air pollution predictions compared to LSTM. This paper contributes to the growing literature on PBDL methods for more accurate air pollution predictions using environmental variables, aiding policymakers in formulating effective data-driven climate policies.